Scalping : The Waiting Room, London – live review

Bristol band Scalping have released their debut EP this month and it’s a cracker. Keith Goldhanger went along to their London gig to have a look.

The worst thing that The Prodigy could do next is find a young 20-something uni kid with wacky hair to run around shouting the lyrics to Firestarter in order to rake in the money that thousands of music consumers would be happy to part with.
Or they could continue to make music without Keith Flint.

This is more than possible, as many bands out there can prove. AK/DK, Gallops, Holy Fuck and this evenings entertainers Scalping, one of the best noisy instrumental dance outfits we’ve crossed paths with for quite some time, have arrived with their debut EP. Tonight’s free show is expected to be the start of something that many of us may embrace for some time.

It’s been a very sad week, that has coincided with this Bristol band releasing a glorious tune and a free show at one of London’s smallest venues on a school night in Stoke Newington. Five young men owning between them a screeching guitar, a throbbing bass guitar, a drum kit, and two chaps owning equipment they must have read about in one of those music publications that people either buy before taking a long train journey, or find themselves having to get their head around because they happen to work in one of those music shops that many of us cant afford to walk into.

Scalping make a similar sound to those bands above and will probably have a stage named after them at Arc Tan Gent Festival by the time 2030 arrives. Their music throbs, drops, throbs again and explodes into arm waving dance segments that hit you in the stomach, just like many dance acts over the past few decades have achieved themselves.
But louder.

Seeing this in a venue that can barely hold more than double figures with a sound system nailed to the ceiling is perfect for a band of this calibre, and brings the perfect combination of ingredients we need to shake away the grief and the sadness that the week has hit us with. Scalping are hard, mad, noisy and magical – managing to produce what they do with little effort or nervousness on show and are hopefully at the start of a magical journey.

Begin now with Chamber (below) and then keep up to date with their activities along with the rest of us here. Festival appearances are already pencilled in.

All words by Keith Goldhanger (Images courtesy of Mick Lee). More writing by Keith on Louder Than War can be found at his author’s archive. You can also find Keith on Facebook and Twitter (@HIDEOUSWHEELINV)..